The concept of home, for many of us, means a place of safety in which to land.
After a long day at work, where do you want to go? Home.
When you are having a bad day and the world feels upside down, where do you seek refuge? Home.
Or when you crave a moment to relax and decompress, these are found at home.
Home is where family and friends gather with you to celebrate life’s big and little moments. With time, our home becomes more than its four walls holding it together, it becomes our soft place to land and our center.
Currently, the structural foundation of a new home begins in Mount Vernon, thanks to Skagit Habitat for Humanity and the generosity of our members. This will be the home of Dayse and her three girls.
As the concrete is poured and the two-by-fours erected into frames the house takes shape and Dayse lays the seeds for her future – her home and her soft place to land.
Home is our core, our pillar, our recharging station, and from there we branch out to our daily adventures, much like the branches on a tree. This is what Habitat is providing us with – our core.
Before becoming a homeowner through Habitat, Dayse’s life appeared marked by instability and uncertainty.
Growing up with immigrant parents, their family faced challenges, but her parents always provided a stable home, never letting the extent of their financial struggles be felt. “My parents worked tirelessly to make ends meet. They always did their best to provide for our family,” recollects Dayse.
Despite moving a few times in her youth, first, from apartments to a mobile home then to her parent’s current residence, she always knew where to find her home base and her core.
However, her journey as a parent started out far from stable. Finding herself in a toxic relationship she was constantly on the move due to her partner’s abusive and unpredictable behavior.
“I tried to work and provide for my children, but I was guilt-tripped into staying home because he insisted that our babies needed me,” Dayse explains. The continued uprooting of her girls and the constant instability became apparently stressful. Whether it was him kicking them out or deciding not to pay rent, they always seemed to be on the move. “It took a toll on my youngest daughter, who was diagnosed with Alopecia, a condition brought on by stress.” Eventually Dayse had enough and sought help at a women’s shelter. Her life as a single mother began.
Once the dust settled, Dayse slowly began to piece a life together for her and her girls. A stable life. She moved into her parents’ home and without much in the way of work experience began working multiple jobs to make ends meet.
I worked three jobs, including starting a small cleaning company, working as an interpreter for a non-profit tax company, and then overnight I would care for an elderly lady in her home.
Grateful to her parents for providing a loving home, she knew this was not the ideal situation for her three young daughters. She dreamed of a stable home of her own where her daughters could safely play outside, where she could plant trees in the yard (a symbol of stability), and even have a dog.
Everything changed for Dayse and her girls the day she was selected by Skagit Habitat for Humanity to become a homeowner.
A turning point offering her a new trajectory for her future. “ For me,” Dayse says, “ Habitat has brought hope, a sense of accomplishment. I feel that I finally got something right.” She even bought a tree to plant in the front yard as a representation of her journey, one that is ever evolving and growing.
As work begins on her new home Dayse feels like she can finally “unpause” her life. No more moving, No more uncertainty.
“I feel like I have been waiting for my life to start. Habitat is giving me an opportunity to do something for myself. It will be my house which I got on my own with my hard work. A home that I also get to help build. How many people get to say that?”
Contributing to the construction of her home is empowering for Dayse, instilling a real sense of ownership and pride. She knows this is not just a house made from wooden planks. From its inception she is creating a home and a soft place to land for years to come. Her girls will grow up splashing in the pool in the backyard on hot sunny days or lie beneath the shade of the trees in the front yard. The very ones Dayse planted the very same way she planted the seeds of their stability. Their home becomes their core.
This is what Habitat for Humanity looks like in action.
